5.  The applicant was born in 1946 and lives in Košice.
6.  On 28 August 2000 and 17 April 2001 respectively police authorities in Martin and Zvolen brought two separate sets of criminal proceedings against the applicant. The applicant was accused of abuse of authority (Article 158 of the Criminal Code) on the ground that, while acting as an enforcement officer (exekútor), he had allowed the transfer of securities of two major companies to a third party, thus causing prejudice to the creditor. As the companies in issue had been involved in arms production and their transformation brought about a high rate of unemployment in the region, the events attracted the attention of the media.
7.  The applicant received the first decision accusing him of an offence on 7 September 2000. Prior to that, two daily newspapers with nationwide distribution published information about the case.
8.  The daily newspaper Pravda published an article on 30 August 2000 in which it stated that several persons including the applicant had been accused of an offence. The article stated that the information had been obtained from a “competent police source”, indicating that there were justified reasons to believe that the accused persons had attempted to arrange for a transfer of the property of the company in issue at as low a price as possible to the detriment of other creditors.
9.  A similar article was published in Hospodárske noviny on 4 September 2000. It indicated that the relevant information had been obtained from the police.
10.  Subsequently, several other articles were published in the press reporting on, among other things, the criminal proceedings. They were mostly based on the facts contained in the decisions accusing the applicant of abuse of authority.
11.  In September 2000 the magazine Dane a právo, specialising in tax issues, published an article, “Criminal activities related to enforcement proceedings”, in the column entitled “From the reports of the Finance Police”. With reference to the decision to start the criminal proceedings it described the circumstances under which enforcement proceedings had been brought against the company concerned. It indicated that the applicant, as an enforcement officer, had not proceeded in accordance with the law. The article contained the following paragraph:
“The facts mentioned above confirm that [the representatives of the companies concerned] acted in agreement with the enforcement officer JUDr. Ján B. [the applicant] with the intention of transferring movable and, most importantly, immovable property to company [...] at as low a price as possible and, thereby, deliberately causing prejudice to other creditors ...”
12.  Another article was published by the weekly magazine Profit on 18 September 2000. Its author referred in detail to the investigation file kept by the police. It also contained the following quotations from the deputy director of the Office of the Finance Police:
“... [the applicant], without justification, made a list of securities indicating that they formed part of the movable property of [the company concerned] notwithstanding that [that company] ... did not own those securities at that time ... While the action of the accused corresponds to the constitutive elements of the offence of causing prejudice to a creditor, if considered in its entirety, it is a premeditated fraudulent action aimed at transferring the property [of the company concerned] to its daughter companies and, subsequently, [to a different company].”
The article further indicated that, according to the police, the accused had thereby caused damage to the company concerned and to a bank amounting to 900 million Slovakian korunas (SKK) and SKK 222 million respectively. Grounds existed for the police to believe that the actual damage was even higher.
13.  Subsequently, on 3 November 2000, the same magazine published a text drafted by the applicant in which he commented on the article of 18 September 2000. The editor’s comment on the text indicated that the author had based the article in issue on information obtained during conversations with the investigators and from the relevant police files.
14.  On 6 October 2000 the magazine Moment published an article entitled “Fraud for a Billion”. It covered the situation of the company in issue and also addressed the criminal proceedings. Reference was made to the police files and statements by the deputy director of the Office of the Finance Police. It contained the following paragraph:
“A police investigator brought criminal proceedings also against enforcement officer JUDr. Ján B. from Košice [the applicant] who had actively assisted the management [of the company concerned] in the transaction mentioned above. In June last year the District Court in Martin found that the enforcement proceedings [the applicant] had carried out had been inadmissible and decided to discontinue them. This, however, has no bearing on the fact that the three persons mentioned above had, according to the investigator, committed an offence.”
15.  Several other articles were published on the case in the course of 2000 and 2001. They were based on information submitted by the police.
16.  On 30 August 2001 the District Prosecutor indicted the applicant of abuse of authority under Article 158 of the Criminal Code before the District Court in Martin. On 5 September 2002 the Supreme Court transferred the case to the Bratislava III District Court.
17.  On 7 February 2003 the Bratislava III District Court acquitted the applicant of the above charge. It found that the applicant had neither acted contrary to the law nor intended to cause prejudice to anybody. The company concerned was referred to a civil court with its claim for damages.
18.  The Minister of Justice challenged that decision by means of a complaint in the interest of the law. On 26 November 2003 the Supreme Court rejected the Minister’s complaint.
19.  The applicant sued the editor of Profit, arguing that the statements in the article of 18 September 2000 were false and defamatory. He relied on Articles 11 et seq. of the Civil Code.
20.  On 31 October 2001 the Rožňava District Court granted the action but the court of appeal considered the judgment unclear and quashed it.
21.  On 27 September 2002 the District Court in Rožňava delivered its second judgment ordering the editor of Profit to publish an apology for the false statements contained in the article of 18 September 2000, including the allegation that the applicant’s action had been deliberately fraudulent. The Court found that statements in the article contained criticism of the applicant and described his action with irony, both of which were excessive in the circumstances of the case. The judgment became final on 5 November 2002.
22.  In May 2001 the applicant filed a petition with the Constitutional Court alleging a violation, by the police authorities involved in his case, of his right to be presumed innocent. He relied, in particular, on the police officers’ statements concluding that he had committed criminal offences and the fact that the content of the files was disclosed to the media. In his petition the applicant informed the Constitutional Court that in respect of inappropriate conduct of journalists he was seeking redress by means of an action pursuant to Articles 11 et seq. of the Civil Code and that the proceedings were pending before the Rožňava District Court.
23.  The Constitutional Court declared the petition admissible and held a public hearing in the case.
24.  On 24 January 2002 it delivered a judgment concluding that there had been no violation of Article 6 § 2 of the Convention or Article 50 § 2 of the Constitution.
25.  The judgment comprised nineteen pages. In it the Constitutional Court analysed in detail all the statements complained of by the applicant in the overall context of the articles concerned and in the light of the Court’s practice under Article 6 § 2. It concluded that in their statements to the media the police officers, in substance, had expressed the view that there were justified reasons to suspect the applicant of having committed the offences in issue. The officers had referred to the information contained in the decisions to bring criminal proceedings against the applicant. Read in the context of the articles concerned as a whole, those statements merely implied that at that time, there had been justified reasons to suspect the applicant and the other persons involved of having committed offences and that criminal proceedings had been brought against them on that ground.